


Dear Ronan Goddamned Lynch

by kiiouex



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Letters, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon, The Closest To Fluff We've Gotten In A While Here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 05:04:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10780149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex
Summary: Adam makes no friends at college, Ronan has destroyed his cellphone, and now their relationship hinges solely on UPS.





	Dear Ronan Goddamned Lynch

**Author's Note:**

> I should say upfront that this is based largely on my experience at a non-US college, so you'll have to either forgive or ignore any discrepancies, or pretend Adam paid a million dollars in international student's fees to study in NZ. 
> 
> Beta'd by the effervescent [telekinesiskid](http://archiveofourown.org/users/telekinesiskid)

_Dear Ronan Goddamned Lynch,_

_Since it has been two weeks without you replying to my texts, and because Gansey hasn’t heard from you either, I can only assume that left alone and unsupervised for a fortnight, you have died._

_Please reply with an affirmation, as I am forced to imagine your funeral arrangements will fall to me._

_Yours,_

_Adam Parrish_.

 

Adam writes the letter up by hand, carefully including a return address on the off-chance that Ronan will actually write him back. It’s a quarter to midnight but once he’s actually folded the paper and put it in an envelope he knows that the choice is either send it now or wait until the morning, get too frustrated and nervous and angry to send it, and never hear from Ronan again.

He could use the fresh air, anyway.

He keeps his dorm room neat – it has more storage space than any place he’s ever lived before – and despite the hour, he has no roommate to disturb as he slips his shoes on and leaves. A twin room would have been cheaper, but Cabeswater’s absence haunts him as much as its presence used to, and Adam is prone to nightmares now; nothing mystic, just the home-brand horror offered up by his human brain. The feeling that his body is not his own ends when he wakes up, but the fear of it never will.

He thinks he might be lonely. He doesn’t know if he’ll feel better or worse if Ronan is lonely too.

The reply comes – surprisingly – a week later, the first piece of real mail he’s received at the dorm. The envelope is a rich cream, likely pilfered from Niall’s study; the writing is in fluid cursive, which Adam assumes is barbed sarcasm before he remembers the dream pen. Several pieces of hay fall out of the letter when he unfolds it, and his fingers pluck at them as he reads.

 

_To Adam Parrish,_

_cellphone got caught in a baler accident a few weeks back. Have been too busy to get a new one as I’m building a sick ass wicker man and it needs to be done before fall. Enclosed are some key pieces so you can see what you’re taking me away from._

_Yours,_

_Ronan Goddamned Lynch_

 

Adam re-reads it twice, then laughs, and the laugh comes rasping out of his mouth hoarse and sore. That’s all he gets; less than a third of the paper is covered, no how-are-you, no how-is-college, just a bundle of hay and the likely truth about Ronan’s phone. And it is a _relief_. He sticks it to his pin board, hay attached, one of very few personal touches in his room that feel like _home_.

He’s got a handful of pictures of Gansey and Blue and various angles of Ronan’s shoulder blades as Ronan turned away from the camera, and Henry also ‘gifted’ Adam with a dozen photos of himself, only one of which he dutifully put up. A few old toys, with him because there is nowhere else to keep them, a dozen old books for the same reason, and now: hay.

Most freshman mixers revolve around alcohol, which he doesn’t touch, and doesn’t know how to excuse himself from without making things awkward. Most of the small-group tutorials he takes are with other STEM majors, who tend to be either quieter than him, or too confident to approach. It reminds him of Aglionby, those first weeks hunched friendless with the mantra that the work will pay off, that he’s not there to make friends. It reminds him he’s small town, that these people have never been as poor as he has, and even if he’s not _shy_ of that anymore, it still leaves him a little on the back foot.

No one has even _heard_ of Glendower. His conversational well is dry.

 

_Dear Ronan_ ,

_Pleasantly surprised to learn that you’re still alive. I have passed this happy news on to Gansey who said, and I quote, ‘Good god, he chucked his phone into a baler?’ He also requested that you get a new phone, but I’m assuming you won’t and I should only be grateful your letter did not come tied to a pigeon’s leg._

_I am also glad to hear you’re keeping busy. Thank you for the generous gift of six pieces of hay; hopefully they were not crucial to your project. Cannot wait to discover what you’re going to occupy yourself with when the wicker man is complete._

_Yours,_

_Adam_

_P.S. College is going well, thank you for asking._

 

He feels better after he sends it.

His classes aren’t too hard; first year electrical engineering is largely basic building blocks, with foreboding promises of work to come. Adam sits through an entire lecture given over to military recruiting, forcibly blotting out phrases like _subsidised fees_ with his teeth in his tongue; he doesn’t need to sell himself like that, not anymore.

Local friendships still elude him, since all his peers seem to have bonded in the first week when Adam was still trying to get his bearings and conquer an irrational bout of homesickness. He certainly doesn’t miss _Henrietta_ , but the mountains maybe, Ronan probably, all five of them tangled up and exploring and belonging, so much it hurts.

Gansey sends him emails and texts and the occasional video call; Gansey is tanned and healthy and delighted by the world that he’s getting to explore. Behind him South America stretches out, vivid and waiting. Behind Adam are the bare walls of his dorm room, the muffled sound of a party in the room across the hall that he will not be joining.

He checks his mailbox every day.

 

_Adam,_

_Pigeons are fucking hard to catch. Have you not been getting my smoke signals? I have been burning a lot of shit and I assumed some of them must have reached you by now – feels like your fault for not checking, really._

_Wicker man went out of season so instead I’ve been turning a spare lot into a dirt race track. When you come back I’ll let you drive a tractor round it._

_Love,_

_Ronan_

 

Adam weighs the sign-off ‘love’ against Ronan intentionally destroying his phone to put himself out of contact, and wonders where exactly he stands. It’s not like they’re a very traditional couple; it’s not like he expected them to be good at long-distance. Ronan has been a disastrous mix of over-passionate and under-involved as long as he’s known him. Maybe this is just something that comes with the territory.

He gets the letter in the morning and doesn’t have time to reply right away, but it’s folded up in his head, carried with him for the rest of the day. The eventual conclusion: be pleased enough that Ronan is troubling to write him back. There’s still that thread between them.

Adam finds he has a knack for soldering, does extra hours in the lab practicing on circuit boards, hands and mind both engaged, the magician making connections. He wires up switches to batteries to LEDs, doesn’t break the legs of any transistors, flicks his tiny set of lights on and off, trivial victories. He doesn’t know if it’s right to feel proud over something this basic, but he thinks he might anyway.

He knows it won’t interest Ronan though, so he saves his page-space for more important things.

 

_Dear Ronan,_

_Delighted again to hear that you’re still assuming I’ll come back to Henrietta in the break, even though you were apparently content not to message me at all for fourteen weeks._

_Had a first wave of tests this week. People I haven’t seen since the first day of class showed up, which made me think of you, you aimless delinquent. You’d hate it here. I’m learning a lot._

_Just in case you’d somehow forgotten – stamps cost money. Email is free._

_Love,_

_Adam_

 

Stamps are _cheap_ , but the point is he is the only person he knows who has ever bought an envelope. Signing love is just responding in kind - this is as new a field as everything else he’s thrown himself into lately. Adam considers and reconsiders adding _I miss you_ a dozen times, but eventually decides to keep hiding between faceless letters and a one-week turnaround time to shield him from his own emotions, and posts the letter as-is.

Blue sends him a picture of Gansey holding his glasses to his face as a monkey tries to tug them away; Adam puts it on his pin board, along with his schedule and the hay. If Gansey can sense that he’s people-starved, his only reaction is to text Adam in sporadic bursts, whenever his phone battery and reception align. His diligence makes Ronan more frustrating, but then, Adam can’t say he didn’t know what he was getting into.

Ronan has apparently run out of his father’s nice stationary, as the next letter arrives on the same plain bookstore stock that Adam has been sending him. A parcel of stamps falls out with the letter, and Adam appreciates Ronan’s ability to get under his skin without needing a single word.

 

_Parrish_ ,

_Glad to hear you’re still a fucking cheapskate. Here are some stamps; feel free to stop writing me in indignant protest if you want. If I log on to a computer Gansey and Henry are going to ambush me with eight hundred goddamn photos of themselves in that fake car and Cheng will pout if I don’t leave notes on them all saying he looks pretty. Gansey might too. Too dangerous._

_I’m not going to ask you how college is on principal at this point._

_Up yours,_

_Ronan_

 

He’s not wrong. Adam has silently blocked Henry on the Instagram account he was badgered into making. It still feels wrong for Ronan to ignore Gansey though, as if he’s blotting out his dearest friend in some misguided attempt to punish him for daring to leave home - and it’s not like they never send anything _good_. Adam endeavours to show Ronan what he’s missing. 

Of all the photos Blue has sent him, Adam tries to select the one with maximum impact. He settles on a shot of Gansey in only a muscle tee and his underwear, feet up and dozing in the Camaro’s backseat. He’s not on first-name basis with anyone in his hall with a printer, so he has to go to a computer lab to get a copy he can put in with a letter, and simply hope that no one will be looking over his shoulder. The things he does for Ronan Lynch. 

 

_Ronan,_

_Enclosed is one of the photographs that you’re missing out on – that I had to actually download and print out of a physical printer, instead of instantly beaming it to you through the wonders of technology. Pay special attention to the lines where the ink is running out of red pigment, right over Gansey’s Welsh-flag boxers. The dragon loses a lot when it’s not crimson. Are you sure this is the hill you want to die on?_

_I bet you’ve given up on your track already – what are you working on now? I am working hard at college, which is excellent, I’m touched you’re considerate enough to bring it up._

_Love,_

_Parrish_

 

He drops it off in a post box between classes, and finds he’s smiling as he does.

A group project forces him into proximity with some of the engineering acolytes, who are shy but pleasant, who he has to swap social media information with in order to work with, who he wouldn’t call _friends_ but who he can start sitting next to in classes. They’re friend _ly_ , Adam finds he can help answer their questions, and even if they just chat about assignments, they’re still chatting. One’s even in his hall; nodding’s about the most Adam’s really up for, but it’s certainly a pro-social kind of a nod. 

A week and a half after that, and he gets Ronan’s response. It’s a box in place of a letter, taped up sloppily but securely, and Adam carries it curiously up to his room. Inside, he finds chunks of terracotta, shards of what Adam can deduce may have been a pot – but placing even the bigger pieces together, he thinks it would have been an ugly, misshapen thing.

There’s a sheet of paper included too, stained a ruddy reddish colour from all the clay dust, and Adam holds it gingerly to read it.

 

_To Adam,_

_I’m ignoring your technophiliac bullshit to present to you my new art, thanks for asking. The pottery wheel I found is old as balls and a bit unsteady but I’m sure you’ll appreciate it. Knowing you, your room is serial-killer bare, right? Have a late housewarming gift._

_I’m fucking glad to fucking hear that fucking college is fucking excellent, tell me fucking more._

_Dick looks great in that picture._

_~~Love~~ Fuck you,_

_Ronan_

For the first time in a while, Adam gets that very old feeling that Ronan is a teenager rebelling largely because Green Day told him to. There is no indication of whether or not the pot was meant to arrive broken, but Adam guesses that it was _supposed_ to be in one piece and Ronan Lynch’s self-confidence blinded him to the realities of both UPS and bubble wrap.

Still though – pottery? It’s been about ten weeks, only a month before Adam goes back to the Barns, and as much as Ronan will ardently defend his freedom, Adam thinks he can read between the lines. At least Glendower offered structure when Aglionby couldn’t; at least Ronan had friends and outings and purpose, day-to-day.

Adam prints his response on a piece of university letterhead paper, and makes his signature as huge and liquid-smooth as he can underneath, as formal as possible.

 

_Dear Ronan,_

_You are bored_.

_Sincerely,_

_Adam._

 

It’s probably childish, and he posts it anyway. No one else has ever bothered calling Ronan out on anything; no one but him currently has any _means_ to communicate with Ronan, even if they wanted to. Freedom and farmland isolation are all very well and good, but Adam can see all his abandoned projects piling up, and he can guess where it’s leading.

The thought does occur to him that Ronan might stop replying, but the thought comes two days later, when it’s impossible to take back. He’s busy, anyway; he still checks his mailbox every day, between arranging final projects, trying to get his last bits of coursework in line, and gathering up everything he’ll need for exam cramming like an academically-inclined beaver.

Adam is about ready to write to Ronan again, to coax him back into correspondence, when he receives two letters on the same day. The first is a post-it, on which Ronan has scrawled ‘fuck you’ before apparently taking the care to mail it in an envelope. The second has a postmark from a day later, as though Ronan reconsidered letting a fuck-you post-it be his whole communication for the week.

 

_Dear Adam Fucking Parrish,_

_If you’re going to suggest I go to college in any form – online and community included – then you can shove it. The farm’s doing great. The weather is shit. Even if you were right I wouldn’t stroke your massive fucking ego Mr-Official-University-Letterhead._

_Also don’t take any of that the wrong way, you’re still coming here next month so you can goad me in person. Even though all your ideas are employment, or volunteering, or education aka total garbage._

_~~Fuck you~~ Love, _

_Ronan_

 

It’s the kind of letter that it’s exciting to get seven days out from his first engineering exam, though Adam is aware he provoked it. And Ronan isn’t mad enough to pettily revoke the invitation to the Barns, a real risk, especially when Adam’s hall of residence promises to be both empty and sad over the break.

He takes a few days to figure out how he wants to respond. Adam started wondering what Ronan was going to do with himself long before he left for college, but decided that was Ronan’s problem to solve; Ronan has now rejected basically every activity that adults use to fill their time, and Adam thinks it’s fair to throw him a bone.

He goes back to handwriting at his desk, beside the pot that he glued back together as best as he could. It slopes terribly to the left. 

 

_Dearest Ronan,_

_You and I have already established that ‘traditional’ paths are not for you, and I’m not about to retread that ground. It’s a shame that you can’t do anything more productive with the farm, since you love it and it is apparently going well. What do people usually do with farms? When they’re not millionaires with self-growing crops and magical animals that don’t really need tending? Some kind of work, probably. Possibly even business. _

_I am still (somehow) looking forward to seeing you and the Barns again. It’s been a tiring semester so I’m hoping to relax so if you could make sure there aren’t any nightmares or bodies in need of a burial, that would be excellent. Just a preference though._

_Lots of love,_

_Adam Fucking Parrish_

_P.S. My exams are going great, thanks for asking._

 

The underline is about the peak of Adam’s passive aggression, but it feels deserved.

Exams and cramming consume him for the next week, and hard work has always been Adam’s strength. He walks out of every room feeling confident, _knowing_ he’s done well with a kind of certainty that’s warm in his gut. His friends compare answers with him, come up with about the same things, all of them relieved and assured. Adam hadn’t realised until right at the end how afraid he’d been that he wasn’t going to make it through, but he’s sure now. All that’s left is sitting out the end of the study period, and packing a bag for the break. 

The last letter arrives in an iridescent envelope, the pearly gleam incongruous with the USPS stamp slapped on one corner. Adam can recognise a dream thing well enough by now, as he slits it open, and knows that this is a sign that Ronan has either been dreaming about him or that he’s sick of buying his own envelopes. Knowing Ronan, it is both.

The paper within gleams the same way, finally suiting the script of Ronan’s cursive pen.

 

_Adam,_

_Took some shit to the farmer’s market today. Some lady got all up in my face about ‘regulations’ and ‘food safety’. Way too much effort. An old dude brought some of my wool though, so that’s cool. I’ve got a fuckton of everything I’m not going to use. Dream animals, man._

_Don’t get smug or whatever though, you insufferable prick, if you show up next week all ‘I told you so’ or ‘don’t you like contributing to society’ I’m going to make you sleep in a barn._

_See you soon,_

_Ronan_

 

Adam tucks the letter into the box where he’s keeping the others, no need to reply to this one. He’s definitely smiling though, and it’s definitely smug.

It’s a very long drive back to Henrietta, but his car’s good enough to make it. Fourteen weeks, and the first time he’s _really_ missed being able to text Ronan is now, being able to tell him he’s on his way, being able to hear that Ronan remembers and is waiting. The chance of Ronan forgetting should be low; the chance that he is going to find Ronan coated head to toe in dirt, halfway through some other misguided project feels non-zero.  

Driving through Henrietta summons a hectic cocktail of emotions that Adam feels too tired to process. He doesn’t want to drive past anywhere he used to live, not even Monmouth which will be sagging again without Gansey’s care. Easier to push right through, into the enchanted greenery of Singer’s Falls, heading to Ronan directly. Adam sees a light on in the kitchen, as he pulls up outside and his heart pangs like it hasn’t in months, since that first homesick week in his dorm room alone.

Across the drive, he can see the upright legs of a half-finished wicker man, and past that, a muddy, ruined field where the track would have been. It is a real and ferocious battle to keep the vindicated smirk off his features.

Ronan’s waiting on the doorstep for him as he parks, expression unreadable, arms crossed, taut and nervous, a body language that Adam has learned to read very well. “Lynch,” he greets, locking his car. He crosses the gravel drive slowly, distance recalculating and re-evaluating, four months of letters no real stand-in for what they’d missed.

“Parrish,” Ronan replies, voice tense as anything, not able to take Adam for granted. Adam would very much like to point out that it’s Ronan’s fault that all they swapped were written words, that Gansey never felt so distant even on a different _continent_. That he had _missed_ Ronan, resented him, loved him, and wanted very much to instil some kind of consequence in him for terrible phone-destroying behaviour.

A pot on the porch catches Adam’s eye. Beside Ronan’s foot are half a dozen nicely finished pots that are not only mostly symmetrical but also tidily glazed. Adam stares at them, and then turns his affronted gaze to Ronan. “Did you send me your misshapen trial one on purpose?”

“I didn’t want to send a good one in case it broke in the post,” Ronan replies, and then he’s grinning, arrogance and teeth, and Adam can be mad at him and love him too, can close the last of the distance between them to punch Ronan hard in the arm and then kiss him, warm and sweet and everything he’s been missing. 

“ _Email_ ,” Adam insists, lips against Ronan’s mouth, arms snaked irresistibly around his shoulders. “A new account that no one else knows. But _come on_.”

“Computers steal the soul,” Ronan says, and kisses him again, evasive, an absolute bastard, and holds on to Adam as tight as Adam holds on to him.

Adam thinks they’re going to be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! I'd love to know what you thought. I also do junk over on [tungle](http://kiiouex.tumblr.com/)


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